how to: write a reading reflection

Writing about what we read, without using a ratings or value system.

Do you ever get tired of starred reviews and long justifications of why a book earned someone’s deeply subjective 8.2 rating instead of a 9.1?

I’ve never really been a fan.

I’m not into book reviews or star-based rating systems for books. This is why I’ve steered-clear of Goodreads and the like.

It’s also why I quietly followed, but did not participate in the niche Instagram book community, Bookstagram, until a few years ago. Then, when I finally created my account, I was inundated by endless Reels and Stories and posts dedicated to telling me how to feel about books I’ve never read.

I also found a group of bookish creators I love following precisely because they would never, ever tell me how I’ll feel about books and instead focus on how they feel about the literature they intentionally seek out and read closely…

One of my favorite essayists, Briana Soler, (who I met on Bookstagram, coincidentally) wrote about complicated Bookstagram habits and literary influencing in her recent Substack piece. It’s very worth your time and absolutely inspired some of my preamble today.

So, scroll on for my thoughts on why I think book ratings are downright dangerous and how I think we can shape our responses to books in more honest ways.

Why I don’t love rating what I read

I think it’s really dangerous, not to mention solipsistic, to believe that everything we engage with has to be measured on its likability—which tends to be synonymous with how well it met our personal preferences. We so often fall into “rating” things based on how well they spoonfed us what we already know or approve of.

I also think book reviews and ratings are evidence of our culture’s obsession with accumulating data—how many steps you took in a day, how many ounces of water you drank, what percentage you are of the population who streamed Taylor Swift’s newest album on the first day it was released. We’re so hell-bent on accumulating data that we rarely stop to ask what that data even means.

When I see charts of the genres people read, and how many pages the books they read tend to be, and the time periods they read most in, all spread across huge spreadsheets full of ratings systems…I think of the incredible work that goes into creating and maintaining such a system. And I wonder what it’s all for. To validate that you liked something?

You don’t have to validate it. You can just like, or dislike, things. Without having to attach stars or numbers.

(The icky effect of these ratings is that they also, over time, accumulated from dozens or thousands of readers, result in an “average rating” that doesn’t really tell you anything about the book; only about how well it met a large populations expectations to be entertained.)

So.

Anyway.

Here’s my hot-take: I don’t actually care if you liked a book. I don’t care if you hated it. I mean, I’m happy for you if you read a book and loved it! And our affective or emotional response to what we read is so critical to how we engage in closely reading. After all, I’ve given plenty of how-to advice here about the importance of tuning into your emotions while you read and formulate a response to your reading.

But!

What if we used those emotional responses to ask questions about how and why a book works?

What if we found more reflective, rather than reductive, ways of expressing and sharing our excitement and energy for books and stories?

What if just admitted that all those ratings systems are too wildly subjective anyway, and leaned into the subjective experience of reading even more?

Because a book could be absolutely detestable and still be worth reading—I can really dislike something and still be deeply glad I read it.

Here’s an example from my own reading life:

I feel deeply torn about everything I read by Olive Moore, a staggeringly misogynistic modernist writer about whom I wrote an entire dissertation chapter.

I simply would not understand critical disability studies at the depths that I do without her work; my dissertation would have taken an entirely different shape, with such different ramifications if I hadn’t included her voice. She, to me, represents a critical undercurrent of modernist thought—one that, troublingly for those of us who love the era, frequently bubbled from undercurrent to mainstream.

To leave her out would be to ignore those unsavory voices from history we can’t make sense of with tidy narratives about the past.

But, when people ask how I rate her work, or if I “recommend” her work…I pause.

I’m not sure I’d recommend reading her essays and novels, unless you’re completing a larger survey of women’s writing in modernist literature, or working on a project about disability and pregnancy in 20th century modernism.

But I wouldn’t not recommend her, either. Her prose is staggeringly avant-garde, the non-linear narrative threads are expertly woven; the plot is heartbreaking and confusing, and the main characters are deeply limited by the social world—but also by the author who created them.

How can I assign a star or a numerical rating to that?

Well, I don’t have to. And you don’t need to rely on the numbers I’d give her to make up your mind about whether or not you want to spend time reading her work. Lucky for us, we have minds, which we get to make up for ourselves.

So.

Rather than write reviews, I write reflections and close readings and musings. And when I’m thinking about what I want to read next, I look to others’ musings and reflections and close readings—as well as my own weird set of desires and topics and time periods—to help me choose.

Ultimately, what I care about when we’re telling each other about the books we’ve read, is simple—even if it requires a lot more mental work to frame than assigning a few stars.

I care about: did it work? Did the story work in the end?

Did it do something special? Was there something intentional or memorable about the craft? Did the author depart from their usual patterns in some meaningful way? Did the story make you feel something you don’t feel very often? (And if you liked the feeling, did that make you like the book? If you didn’t like the feeling, but the book conjured it well, does that make you give it more or fewer stars?)

How can you put a numerical value to the way a novel recasts a known phenomenon in a new light, compounding its mystery?

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A reflection is a deeply internal writing exercise—and because of that, it requires a good deal of honesty.

Typical book reviews, especially those with meticulous rating systems, often twinge with dishonesty, as the writer invents layered categories to judge a book’s efforts, or attempts to make you feel like you need to read to stay culturally relevant or be invited to the conversation. The worst offenders are those cruelly gatekeeping reviews: “If you didn’t like X, you’re not a feminist.” “If you didn’t understand this book, then you’re a fool.” “If you don’t read [Author Name], what are you doing with your time?”

Look at the moves such typical rating language employ: an external push to make you feel a lack (“I need to buy that book to be relevant!”) or shame (“I didn’t like that book, so I must be stupid.”) They reveal nothing of the reviewer’s experience of reading and instead over-emphasize your position on a book you probably haven’t even read—making a lot of assumptions about how you’ll feel about it on the way. (Even shaping your future experience of it, in ways that can be quite unfair—Bri writes beautifully about this in the post I linked above!)

To review or rate is to think externally—will others like this? Based on what?
To reflect is to look inside yourself at your response to a piece of writing and ask why it has had the effects it has had on you. Did I like this? Based on what?

If you’re tired of “5-star summer reads” and “books I gave a 2 out of 10” listicles, then maybe you’d like to try writing a reflection, rather than a review.

Try each of these steps as either a meditative exercise (consider the questions while walking or sitting or listening to music) or as a freewrite exercise, either handwritten or typed.

1. Notice what the book did. Where did it start? Where did it end? What did you learn? What did you miss? What did you love about it? What did it make you feel?

   1. If your dominant reaction is: I learned nothing and I hated this! that is good information, as Saunders reminds us. But rather than giving it 1 star and throwing it to the “donation” pile, consider asking yourself: Why did I hate it? What did I bring to this experience?

   2. Caveat: Books can be terrible. I’m not saying that the only reason a book could be bad is because you brought bad energy to it; I’m simply inviting you to put pressure on the particulars of the depth of your response to what you’ve read. (This will make your scathing critique even better, if that’s the road you decide to take!)

2. Ask yourself what expectations the story established and how well you feel you saw those expectations met.

   1. This is a moment for honestly! Sometimes, we might hold a book accountable for more than it sets out to do (and sometimes that’s precisely because someone we loved gave it 5-stars and we’re feeling lukewarm.)

   2. If you’re not sure what “expectations” in a story are, go back to the first paragraph of the book. That’s usually where a story starts telling you what to expect—and where you’ll be going.

      1. Think about the shape of the story: does the end link right back to the beginning? (Are we right back where we started?) or have we been transported to a whole new world? Are we still with the same characters, or have we gained new or additional perspectives?

3. Consider what you gained by reading: a new perspective, a new way to think, an insight into a mystery, a set of questions…?

   1. Even if you deeply disagree with or hate the perspective you met in the book, did you gain anything from reading it?

   2. If you’re deeply confused or bored by a book, did you gain a new appreciation for other kinds of writing? How has your own reading sensibility been sharpened through this reading?

Once you’ve collected some thoughts, write your reflection. Avoid any impulse to assign values, like stars or numbers or “better than,” “worse than,” phrases. Focus, instead, on what happened in the book and the response you had to it happening.

If it feels a bit revealing, like you’re sharing the parts of your reading experience you’d normally keep secret (even from yourself), you may very well be on the right track.

And then, if you’d like, please send me what you wrote. I’d love to read your reflections.

(No seriously. Send me all your book reflections!)